Understand the Meaning of Life and Death, Let Go of Fear

By a Falun Gong practitioner in Mainland China

(Clearwisdom.net) From very early on in life, humans have a fear of death. One would think that humans belong to this world. This notion, however, will cause us to lose righteousness in many circumstances. Although this kind of fear has been greatly weakened through our cultivation practice, it can still dominate us from time to time. When another practitioner is in a life threatening situation or after some practitioners have lost their lives or after learning about the Chinese Communist Party's practice of harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, some practitioners became afraid or even blamed Master. The main reason for this fear is not studying the Fa well and not understanding things from the Fa's perspective. Our notions, thus, still remain at the ordinary people's level and we do not have true righteous thoughts.

Since I started practicing Dafa in 1996, I have always had faith in our Master. In July 1999, when the evil party started spreading lies and slandering Falun Dafa, I had some doubts. But in my heart I could feel the profoundness of Dafa. In these years that the evil has been persecuting Dafa, I have done all right on the important things, but sometimes the fear surfaced. Although I understood the Fa, I was unable to do things according to the Fa. I was also trying to figure out my own unrighteousness and strengthen my righteous thoughts. Sometimes I felt very frustrated. I felt that I had strong faith in Master, but why was I still worrying about this or that? My answer was: On the one hand, I was worrying because I didn't do well myself and wasn't able to achieve Dafa's standard and, hence, I could suffer big tribulations--even death. On the other hand, it could be a manifestation that I was in the process of gradually getting rid of this attachment.

I also noticed that, although I had a firm belief in our Master, I couldn't reach the level of completely believing. Yet it could not be described as not believing. This often occurred when I was encountering some significant event. During the process of deeply looking inward, I noticed an issue, which was how to view the concept of death, and I would like to share this with everyone.

Many of us have this notion deep in our brains: "According to all living beings, 'death' means the end of life. 'Death; is a painful experience. It means we have lost everything." Because of this view of death, some practitioners ask, "Why have our practitioners suffered such serious persecution? Why would that particular practitioner die? Why have practitioners, who should have Master's fashen protecting them, had to suffer the agony of having their organs removed while they were alive?" and so forth.

Actually, a human body is made by gods and is composed of a spirit (often referred to as the "soul") and a physical body. The spirit is the essence of a person, while the physical body is the clothing he must put on while he comes to the human world. As far as a good person is concerned, "death" is just awakening from sleep. The person then casts off his or her "pajamas" and returns to "reality" from "dreamland." "Pajamas" refer to the physical body and "dreamland" refers to the human world. "Reality" is where a person's life came from and will return to. (Certainly, for those who have committed enormous sins and accrued too much karma, they will no longer return to their origins. They will be eradicated, with both their bodies and souls dying. Their fate will be terrible.)

Therefore, although one lives in the world, it is just a stage in one's life, just a kind of manifestation. It is one stage within a whole life process. You come to this world to do something you want to do. It is as if you have to stay in a hotel while you are on a business trip. After the trip is completed, you cannot stay in the hotel forever and have to go home (one's spirit cannot stay in this world forever). After the spirit leaves, it only appears that a life has "died."

In fact Master has said that whatever a life has turned out to be, he can retrieve its original essence. Because we think that this takes place at consummation and that it will happen in another dimension, we are often still unable to get rid of the notion of physical death. Certainly, letting go of our fear of death doesn't mean we don't care about the life of our physical body. On the contrary, it is because we have this precious body that we are able to cultivate ourselves in this confusing and difficult world and validate the Fa and offer salvation to sentient beings.

Whenever I have done poorly or have had trouble in my mind, I often recall a story that Jesus taught: Jesus and his disciples encountered a big storm in the ocean. Jesus fell asleep. His disciples were worried about the ship capsizing. In the end they could barely hold on and they awakened Jesus. As soon as Jesus opened his eyes and was unmoved, the storm instantaneously disappeared. Jesus asked his disciples, "Where is your faith?"

Whenever I recall this story, this thought comes to mind: "I have faith in Master, everything is controlled by Master. Everything is made to meet the needs of the Fa-rectification. Those evil beings who have done extremely wicked deeds won't be able to affect a Dafa practitioner who is attuned to Fa principles. Such beings are going to be eliminated during the Fa rectification."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/8/6/134640.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version